Vancouver city council is being "silly" in drafting a bylaw to require tanker operators to indemnify the city against the effects of a major oil spill, a maritime lawyer said Tuesday.

Gary Wharton, a partner in Bernard and Partners, said tanker operators and owners are already well covered under a series of overlapping international and national conventions and spill funds in the event of any oil spill in Canadian waters.

That substantial body of legislation, which would provide more than $1.3 billion towards any recovery cleanup, was drafted after a catastrophic 1967 oil spill when the Torrey Canyon, then the world's largest supertanker, was wrecked off Cornwall, England.

"People have been working on this issue [of indemnification and insurance] since the Torrey Canyon spill," Wharton said. "There is very little a city council can add to this."

But that's not the view of Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Vision Vancouver colleagues, who all said they oppose the prospect of increased tanker traffic in the city's harbour.

Robertson, who sponsored the motion, went even farther. He said the city never signed on to the idea it would become an oil export port and shouldn't be put at risk by oil transmission giant Kinder Morgan's plan to increase tanker traffic through the port five-fold.

"We have unwittingly ended up starting into the export of oil from our port here," the mayor said. "This proposal is being put forward as an economic initiative. But frankly, it presents nothing but risk to Vancouver's economy."

The city's opposition sets the stage for it to be a participant in hearings before the National Energy Board when Kinder Morgan applies for permission to double its Alberta-B.C. pipeline and triple the volume of oil sent for export at its Westridge terminal on Burrard Inlet in Burnaby.

Non-Partisan Association Coun. George Affleck opposed the mayor's motion, saying council had not lived up to a plan set in February to seek information and dialogue from all sides. He said in the absence of that debate he was neither in favour nor opposed to increased tanker plans, but felt the mayor and Vision Vancouver were grandstanding.

Green Coun. Adriane Carr supported Robertson's motion, which additionally calls on the mayor to write to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to express the city's "strenuous" opposition to any increase in oil tanker traffic "as it poses an unacceptable and unmitigated risk to Vancouver's economy."

But Wharton said Canada is already a signatory to international agreements that ensure oil tankers already have adequate insurance and would provide "fantastic amounts" of money in the event of a spill. In addition, Canada has its own Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund, which provides up to another $154 million.

"It doesn't sound like they [council] have done their homework," Wharton said, adding the municipality has no power to regulate maritime shipping. He laughed when read a portion of the motion that insists tanker operators be responsible for compensation "for a worst-case scenario oil spill."

"Just what does 'worst case' mean? You'd have to carry insurance for the entire planet," he said. "What authority do they have to approve this? They're just being silly."

But Robertson told council that the insurance now available likely won't cover all of the damage to local businesses in the event of a spill. The 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound decimated local wildlife populations and caused lasting economic harm. Exxon itself spent more than $2 billion on the recovery effort, and recovered a large portion of that from insurers and oil spill funds.

"On further review, it is clear that industry is not ultimately responsible if the costs vastly exceed the liability insurance that is required, which is currently in the order of about $1.3 billion," the mayor said.

"We see massively greater impacts, economic and environmental, that cannot be on the backs of taxpayers. The bottom line here is this proposal represents a huge risk, a huge cost to Vancouver and communities on the South Coast."

jefflee@vancouversun.com

Twitter.com/sunciviclee

Blog: www.vancouversun.com/jefflee

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Vancouver council called 'silly' for seeking oil spill indemnity

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